Baffled: Dr David Drew emailed prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to colleagues

A Christian doctor went to an
employment tribunal yesterday claiming he was sacked because he emailed a
prayer to his colleagues.

David Drew, 64, qualified 40 years ago and rose to become clinical director at the hospital where he worked.

But he said he was dismissed after
failing to accept an order to ‘refrain from using religious references
in his professional communications, verbal or written’.

Dr Drew accepts that he emailed a
prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, the 16th century founder of the Jesuits,
to colleagues at Walsall Manor Hospital three years ago to try to
motivate the department.

He said he prefaced it with the words:
‘I find this a personal inspiration in my frail imperfect efforts to
serve my patients, their families and our department.’

He said the email was welcomed by his
colleagues. But he was later accused of sending an ‘unwelcome’ text
message to a colleague on Christmas Day wishing him a ‘peaceful
Christmas’.

The colleague, Rob Hodgkiss, replied
with the word ‘likewise’, but a report by the hospital said: ‘While DD
(David Drew) may regard such messages as benign, RH (Rob Hodgkiss)
perceived them as aggressive and unwelcome intrusions into his private
time.’

Dr Drew told the Birmingham tribunal
the hospital trust never clarified why it told him not to use religious
language at work, and that it was unable to provide further examples of
his use of such phrases.

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He said: ‘The allegation that I have
forced my religion on to other people, that I am some kind of religious
maniac, was made worse by the fact that they told me there was no need
to understand what this is all about.’

To Give And Not To Count The Cost: The prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, sent by Dr Drew to his colleagues

The tribunal heard his problems began
after he raised concerns over a consultant who let a child with
suspicious injuries go home, despite ‘serial warnings from other staff’.

The child was killed a week later by his stepfather, who later admitted
manslaughter. In 2008 Dr Drew was stripped of his position as clinical
director as a result of the dispute about the competence of the child’s
consultant.

He was made aware of two incidents in
2009 when children were allegedly sexually assaulted by adult patients
allowed to use ‘washing and toilet facilities’ on the children’s ward.

He said he wrote to the divisional director over the matter but ‘never
had a satisfactory answer’.

He was suspended for six weeks in 2009
after complaining about a ‘very rude nurse’.

Unfair: Dr Drew went to tribunal after he became deeply concerned about practices at Walsall Manor Hospital in 2008

After his text to Dr
Hodgkiss that December, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust set up an
independent review which told him to stop making religious references.

Dr Drew, who lives in Sutton Coldfield
with his wife Janet, 61, and attends a Baptist church, was finally
dismissed three days before Christmas 2010 after a disciplinary hearing.
The hospital cited a breakdown in trust.